UK Public Funding Body Announces Specific Business Opportunities in China

China pagoda

The HealthTech and Medicines Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), a networking group and vehicle for distributing government funds to manufacturers and research institutions in the UK's healthcare and medicines industries has published a list of Chinese business opportunities for UK companies. The list is based on actual requests from Chinese companies for products and services from UK companies.

The announcement from the HealthTech and Medicines KTN, written by Chris Ansell and published on January 29, 2013, is as follows.

The UK-China Science Healthtech Open Innovation Programme grew out of the highly successful Bradford China Bridges programme, which has been running for over 7 years. During this time the team has developed formal links with over 50 Chinese institutions, and secured over £15 mn of collaborative funding in China and in the UK. The programme aims to strengthen the UK’s translational research collaborations in China, support UK-China technology transfer and exchange, and further develop strategic partnerships with leading Chinese companies, universities and research organisations. The programme is currently focused on pharmaceutical and healthcare technology.

There is now an opening for UK organisations with proven technologies to work with companies based in the Changzhou area of China who are actively looking for technology transfer opportunities. Current areas of interest are outlined below.

At this stage, introductions between interested parties will be facilitated to establish what collaborations might be developed, then looking to progress promising opportunities through access to travel funds to meet companies in China and subsequent access to up to £200,000 of Proof of Concept grant funding and a fully-supported application process. There are no costs associated with accessing this service, however the UK-China Healthtech Open Innovation team will charge a 10% success fee of any revenues secured through this programme.

For further information or to submit your expression on interest, please contact Dr Suzanne Emmett (s.emmett@bradford.ac.uk) and include the reference number of the opportunity of interest.

Please note the closing date for this current application round is Friday February 15, 2013.

Technology transfer opportunities:

- Large Chinese pharmaceutical company looking for UK research institutes/companies with product development experience to co-develop me-too or innovative monoclonal antibody drugs.

- Large Chinese pharmaceutical company looking for UK research institutes/companies with taste-masking technology to co-develop taste-masking formulation, in particular for Roxithromycin and Ambroxol Hydrochloride.

- Large Chinese pharmaceutical company looking for UK research institutes/companies with established and scalable approach for aliskiren synthesis to reduce the cost of API aliskiren.